Time is so slippery. I never know where it goes.
So I built WDTTG – a tool that maps your day by how long things actually take.
problem
Time blindness is a real symptom of ADHD. You think something will take 20 minutes, and it takes three hours. Or you start a task, look up, and the whole day is gone. Either way, you never actually know how long anything takes – which makes planning feel pretty pointless.
process
Building WDTTG was a lot of trial and error – I was learning as I went, figuring out both the code and the design at the same time.
We had just learnt about forms and local storage, so initially I was just trying to understand ways that I could document tasks and their times, and how it could collect.
Slowly, I started thinking about the different ways the display space could be utilized. Could size represent the length of time of that task? Or, perhaps color? Should the tasks display above instead of below? I was trying to see what came across as the most helpful for neurodivergent users, what simplified the visualization of time for them.
Eventually I started bringing in some design elements too – not just in terms of making it look prettier, but also function – how can we make sure the text remains readable whilst still using color and size to evoke the length of time? Also thinking about some extra elements to increase usability – progress bars, limits on tasks and minutes. It was slowly coming together.
solution
WDTTG lets you log tasks and track how long they actually take. Over time, it builds an honest picture of your day – not the optimistic version you planned, but the real one. Less about productivity, more about just knowing where the time went.